"Giraffes are the new duck."

The title of this entry comes from something my friend Deb said yesterday at a baby shower, and it totally cracked me up. So I thought I'd share. It was relating to the sudden dominance of giraffes on baby clothing and accessories over the previously unchallenged reign of the duck. Hee. : )

It's hard for me to write during the week with working, at least until I get back into the swing of things. So you're probably going to get a long rambly entry a couple of times a week. : )

THE WEEKEND OF EMERGENCIES
It was a hectic weekend here at the Klemstein residence. Late Friday night, we had to take Joe into the emergency vet office because he'd broken one of his toenails (a fairly common event, thanks to his thyroid condition) but this time he didn't want to put any weight on his foot. So we brought him in to be checked out and got done at about 1:00 a.m. or so. That's after getting up at six a.m. that morning. Saturday I was gone at a baby shower and came home to get a message that my mother-in-law had been taken to the hospital for an emergency appendectomy--but she's doing okay now! Later last night, after grabbing a quick bite to eat, my husband had an allergic reaction to something, and his eyelid puffed up! So I made a quick run to the store to stock up on Benadryl.

EARLY MORNINGS
So, as I said before, I like being up early in the morning, just not getting up. It's neat to be in my writing room with the sun just coming in, landing on the carpet in pale squares. But the other cool part, which I'd never thought about, is that I'm getting to work early enough that I don't have to worry about being late. That's a huge stress reliever. I don't have to worry about hitting the lights just right or getting stuck behind someone slow. And on Friday...I made it to work in 32 minutes. Awesome.

VALPO
My sister is looking at colleges. She is the age now I was when I was starting my freshman year in college (they changed the cutoff dates for starting school in the thirteen years between us). It just make me feels nostalgic and sort of homesick. I'm going to go with her to visit Valpo, and I'm going to try not to be pushy about it. : ) But I just loved it so much. I remember my first visit to Valpo very clearly. It was in the fall. I burned my tongue on hot chocolate I got at the Chapel. I was wearing one of those multi-colored rugby shirts that were popular back then, and as it was one of my favorites, it featured prominently in pictures of the next couple of years. My jeans were Levis, of course, because that's what they were wearing on 90210. I wore a long wool trench coat and leather boots that, after much loving use, would disintegrate a year or so later and one of the sole nails would actually puncture my foot while I was wearing them. That would require Julie, the one with a much steadier hand and stronger stomach, to use tweezers and a needle to remove the fabric of my sock that the nail punched into my heel. Yeah, okay, that's probably a little gross, but looking back on it, it strikes me as one of the many memories that make us--my college friends and I--family, you know?

This weekend, I was at a baby shower for a college friend and a baptism for the son of a couple of college friends, and at both events, I got to hang out with more college friends. They're all part of my family, and any place, any school that can do that is a good one in my book.

SPEAKING OF BOOKS
How cool is this? On my first day at my new job, they took me out to lunch, and a few of us started talking about books. The next day, I came in and found one of the mentioned books--one that I'd said I'd like to read--on my desk. One of the women I will be working with brought it in for me. How nice is that? : ) I was just so excited and touched by the gesture.

It's called The Jane Austen Book Club and I'm really enjoying it so far. I also just bought Sloppy Firsts, which is one of those books that was allegedly copied in that whole plagiarism thing with the Harvard grad. I was curious! : )

More later!!!